State Party News

Ohio’s Akron Beacon Journal profiles Green Party U.S. Senate candidate Joe DeMare, writing, “With a master’s degree in education, DeMare is one of the most educated machinists in Perrysburg.” If elected, DeMare “would push to replace the Affordable Care Act, a system of exchanges to purchase mandated private medical insurance, with universal health care by taxing billionaires ‘out of existence.'”

He says his “progressive tax plan, he argues, would balance income inequality. On social justice, he would parrot the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement. … But ecological restoration — ‘bringing the environment back to health, not just slowing its decline’ — is front and center on his political agenda. DeMare’s campaign website features a flier” with the candidate “smirking as global warming burns the world behind him. ‘Vote for me if you want to live!’ the ad says.”

In another article, the Beacon Journal writes that DeMare and the two independent candidates in the race “are long-shot candidates,” but “what they lack in viability they more than compensate for in the ability to alter the outcome of the election.”

At its convention on Saturday, the Pacific Green Party, the Oregon state Green Party organization, awarded six presidential convention delegates to Jill Stein and one to Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza-Curry. Stein now has 120 total delegates, Bill Kreml 11, Moyowasifza-Curry seven, Kent Mesplay four, and Darryl Cherney two. A candidate needs 202 delegates to win the nomination.

The Green Party of Ohio has called for the inclusion of U.S. Senate nominee Joe DeMare in the debates that have been agreed to by the Democratic and Republican nominees. The Ohio Green said in a statement, “The primaries have ended; the nominees for all three recognized parties in Ohio have been chosen. It is vital that Ohio voters hear all the voices and have the ability to make an informed decision as to how they will vote in November.”

The party also said the two independent candidates in the race should be invited to debate, and that all Green candidates “for U.S. House and the Ohio Statehouse, as well as local offices be given the opportunity to debate their counterparts, should those debates occur. Only by all the candidates being heard can Ohioans truly have the chance to vote for whom they see as having the ideas and platform that best matches the voters own ideals.”

Democrats have cross-endorsed the Green Party candidate for state representative in Connecticut’s 135th District, Bonnie Troy.

Connecticut’s Redding Pilot reports that Troy’s campaign “is mostly focused on the environment and renewable energy issues. … She says if elected her focus will be to raise awareness and help educate people on how to make more educated choices in local commerce, sustainable food, land care practices, and renewable energy choices.”

Troy received 19% of the vote for the seat two years ago against Republican incumbent John Shaban. But Shaban is not running for re-election, and this time, she “will appear in two places on the ballot — on the Green Party line and the Democratic line.”

Matt Funiciello, the Green Party nominee for U.S. House in New York’s 21st District, appeared on WWNY-TV, the CBS affiliate in Northern New York, on Tuesday.

Funiciello received 10.6% of the vote in the district in 2014, and believes he can make it a true three-way race this year.

“You do build name recognition if you run more than once, certainly. So it is my intent to get full name recognition,” he said. If you’re looking at a weakened [GOP Rep. Elise] Stefanik and a [Democrat] Mike Derrick polling at 30 or 35, you’ve got a three-way race on your hands. People stop worrying about the spoiler effect and start actually looking at the issues.”

He added, “Very few Americans are in disagreement with the Greens about most of the things we feel would make sense on a policy level.”

Flowers said that while she is “supportive of the Green Party’s national agenda,” she “is primarily focused on building local political power.” Flowers said, “It’s really organizing within neighborhoods to empower them to look at what their needs are look at what their resources are and look at how we can harness all of that.”

Flowers “views activism during this election season as a way to target the societal injustices that cause illness and other forms of suffering. ‘As a physician, you see the symptoms of the problems that we face, and I don’t want to just treat symptoms, you need to get at the root causes of why we’re facing the issues that we face.'”

Courthouse News Service reports a panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals “expressed doubt Wednesday over the Arizona Green Party’s claim that a 180-day signature-gathering deadline makes it unconstitutionally difficult for minor parties to qualify for the primary ballot.” During oral arguments, “the three-judge panel pointed to the Green Party’s lack of evidence showing that Arizona’s election rules cause a substantial burden.”

Attorney Julia Damron, arguing for the Greens, “said that while the Arizona Green Party has qualified for the 2016 ballot and the 2020 ballot, ‘the live controversy is ongoing.'” But Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown “noted an absence of evidence in the record to show that the rule illegally burdens minor political parties.”

The Boston Globe reports that the Massachusetts Green Rainbow Party is raising funds to help send the state’s delegates to the Green Party Presidential Nominating Convention in Houston in August.

The Green Rainbow Party says, “The Green-Rainbow Party aspires to incorporate viewpoints from fiscally diverse backgrounds into selecting the Green candidate for U.S. president. That means helping cash-strapped people get to Houston, Texas, to this year’s Green Party of the U.S.’s Presidential Nominating Convention.” The party hopes to raise $2,500 to help fund expenses for five of the Massachusetts delegates.

The state committee for the Arizona Green Party has recommended a “no” vote on Proposition 123, the education finance constitutional amendment that will be on the statewide ballot on May 17. The AZGP says the proposition “is not necessary, since there is a $600 million budget surplus in the state treasury to properly fund K-12 public education,” and that “a recession, a rise in unemployment, lower tax revenues, and a 49% cap on K-12 education funding from the state general fund” could “pull money away from public education.”

The AZGP says most state legislators want to use the surplus “for more corporate tax cuts, as opposed to properly funding K-12 public education.” State co-chair Maritza Broce said, “We have the necessary funds to properly fund K-12 education here in Arizona. Unfortunately, what is lacking is the political will with the majority of our state legislators. Instead of performing their constitutional duty to properly fund public education, our state legislators decided to put the unnecessary and confusing Proposition 123 on the ballot during a special election, when voter turnout is expected to be very low.”

Andrew Stewart writes at CounterPunch that the Green Party is laying the path very early to lead a pack of [Bernie] Sanders supporters to the [Jill] Stein campaign. This explains the reason the party recently said there will be a ‘Green welcome mat’ awaiting the Sanders crowd in July and why Stein recently publicly reached out to Bernie to continue the revolution. The Greens know that someone is in the buff but the Sanders gang has yet to catch on that their emperor has no clothes.”

He continues, “The Greens just passed a major benchmark to gain federal funding. Every vote Jill Stein gets, even if she does not win, is a vote for further funding for the Greens. That is a brilliant type of long game. Even if the Greens lose in 2016, by 2018 they would have more resources for the midterm elections.”